About Paul Jacobs

Paul has a heritage of digital strategy and innovation within the healthcare and pharmaceuticals industry from both the agency and corporate side. He’s currently Global Director of Projects at LEO Innovation Lab.

About Catalina Cernica

Catalina’s experience ranges from branding, consumer insight and business. Innovation is in her blood, alongside her fiery Romanian drive. She’s currently Head of Innovation UK/IE at LEO Innovation Lab.

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When not to choose a design sprint

Design sprints are fantastic ways to create a solution and test it quickly, however, sometimes it can be a red herring.

Innovation is hard, if everyone was doing it, then it’s no longer innovation – it’s business as usual

I’ve previously written about how we need to look at developing products and services differently, and how anyone can innovate in a company, but why are we obsessed with design sprints? Maybe I’m in a bubble, but almost every conversation I have around developing new products, services or even features will include something about a design sprint.

What’s a design sprint?

For the uninitiated, a design sprint is a multiple-day workshop where a team go from idea to prototype validation. It’s supposed to concentrate weeks or even months of development and testing into a week or less.

Probably the best-known sprint methodology is the Google Sprint, developed by Google Ventures – you might have seen someone reading the book Sprint by Jake Knapp et al – and I heartily recommend you take a look if you are considering doing your own sprint. Here’s what it looks like:

The Google Sprint

So you can see how you can get from a problem to an idea to a prototype in 5 (or less) days.

So when doesn’t it work?

Design sprints are fantastic if you know what problem you are trying to solve. However, if you focus on a particular problem and it turns out to be the wrong one (ahem), you’ll end up developing a product or service that does not fit the needs of your users or customers, and at best you would have wasted 3 or 4 days. At worst, you set yourself up to fail with your shiny new idea.

So if you are considering a design sprint, make sure you have done your pre-work with a problem reframing or pain points mapping exercise to ensure the success of your sprint.